A hitch in making the shirt quilts

EP, rather than stressing over lining them up in rows, I'd suggest each row face the opposite direction or else offset each row by 1/2 'goose'. That will require alternating 'fillers' added at the end of the rows- on one the top and the next at the bottom then at the top again. Either way will break up the pattern and fix the little bit they are off. The filler pieces can also be slightly different in size if needed.

Good luck. This is where a quilter needs to get creative!

Leslie & The Furbabies in MO.

That would be a no-go with the client. She is in love with the motif of parallel goose strips. Plus, she wants all the quilts to have the same basic design (with different colors), and this first quilt top is done, so it's too late. Your suggestion sure would negate the assymmetry, though.

Hmmm. *Alternating* on the top wouldn't fix the problem, because it would not result in a simple alternation on the bottom. Whether the top is alternated or straight across, the bottom is going to be all over the place.

But having some *random* half geese at the tops of the strips might help "dilute" the distraction of having the inevitable and random half geese at the bottoms of the strips. It would make it look like I did it on purpose (which I would, in fact, be doing). Does that make sense?

This is definitely worth considering for the next five quilts.

That's really helpful, Leslie. Thanks for helping me believe this is not a problem *or* it's one that can be accommodated.

Honestly, I think the client is going to say, "Whatever." She's going to love the overall appearance. But I keep thinking about the quiltmaker who sees one of these quilts 20 years from now and just criticizes it to bits!

ep

I have been thinking about this; and, without a picture, it is a bit difficult to visualise. However, as you have not yet put the border on, here is one thing you could do (as I really think that a 2" or so difference in length is a little too large to ignore - but it is your and your client's quilt!): As the whole quilt is very much based on triangles, you could cut two very, very narrow triangles, the full width of the quilt (so that they look like a 48"x4" rectangle cut in half sort of thing). *But, one triangle would have a base of 4" and the other would have a base of 2". Thus, your difference would have been accommodated, and it would look as if it were part of the design. The sides would be the same length. You could, even better, put a similar pair of triangles at the top, before the border, but *these two triangles would have the same base width.

As to a quilting pattern, my first crazy thought was: successive rows of joined up 'shirt shapes' (might look something like a washing line full of shirts! They could be whatever size fitted your geese best, and the width of each shirt could be drawn to fit into the width or not. You could even turn the 'washing line' round through 90° to go along the borders, too. I bet you could devise a tessellation even, but I haven't got time I'm afraid to work one out for you. This might give you just a germ of an idea to start with? . In message , Edna Pearl writes

IMO you might want to measuer each and every goose unit for the future quilts. But don't obsess too much with this one. Maybe a really good press will help even up the unequal edges -a couple of inches is a bit much to just ignore.

There's an easy continuous way to almost-echo your triangle shapes: use arcs that run from one point of the triangle to the next. Starting at the top of a goose strip, in one of the corner triangles, do those

3 arcs, the 3 arcs of the goose, and the diag>I finished assembling the central area of the first shirt quilt-top, and

I appreciate everybody's input. I know how hard it is to visualize this, and, as I said, a photo wouldn't help. But you've really helped me anyway by offering me various alternatives. I feel reassured that the alternative I'm chosing is the best of those available, given the client's wishes and the overall appearance of the quilt top.

Everybody seems to agree that two inches difference in the lengths of the sides is too much. I have measured the quilt top and discovered the difference is actually 2-1/2 inches. That really is too much. So I'm going to add one 3"x6" goose block to the last strip and then truncate the geese along the bottom border as necessary. Unfortunately, this probably means I'll have a couple of truncated geese right next to each other -- I would rather have them randomly dispersed. But I am persuaded that this would be more acceptable to the client than any of the other approaches suggested here.

The idea of adding two wide triangles to the borders would probably work very well, but I think the client would not like it. She is very wedded to the appearance of some photos I've shown her. And as I've said, the quilt top as a whole is really very pretty and implements her desires quite well, I think. It's as pretty as any of the Wild Goose Chase quilts I have seen in magazine photographs, and much prettier than at least one such photo, which shows the same irregularities as I'm experiencing, without the harmonies and rhythms I've created. I want to tamper with the overall appearance that the client wants as little as possible, and I think that truncating the blocks on the bottom only will best reflect her wishes. I think it will be a big "who cares" for her, much as it bothers me :-) so I don't plan to draw too much attention to it or demonstrate any disappointment, just present it as a neutral fact.

Many thanks to Michelle for reassuring me that irregularities in the bottom edges may well look nice, as it appears inevitable that it will recur in every single one of these quilts. I can't make these irregularities predictable any more than I can eliminate them. Again, I am convinced that the problem does not lie with the size of the geese patches and that no amount of measuring is going to prevent this problem. I checked that the geese patches were quite uniform before I started piecing the blocks. I think the problem lies with differences in how the various shirt fabrics interact with the whole cloth of the "sky" triangles and with the adjacent blocks in each strip.

Thanks again for all your creativity and brainstorming -- every single idea that you threw out fit into my deciding what to do next. I'm trying not to fret about this, but I'm sure you know that I am. At least it's attractive, even if it does have some irregularities! I'm going to add one block to the last strip, as I've said, then put the quilt top aside while I assemble the next one and see how it behaves.

ep

E.P., isn't this the best group? They have come through with some excellent suggestions for you. Being rather new myself, the only thing I might add is that there are several ways to make flying geese blocks. The easy one involves no triangle cutting, at least it's the easiest for me. Just the big rectangle and then two square blocks, one for each corner shown at this link:

I find that they stay more consistent in size when I make them this way. Donna

Yes, Donna, this really is a great group. I asked a hard-to-explain question and was met with so much variety and creativity. That's just one example of the generosity of spirit that characterizes this group.

I know of the method of piecing Wild Goose Chase that you mention -- but it isn't much use in my project because I'm cutting shirts instead of whole cloth. I could probably get one such block out of the back of the shirt and have to do the rest with template and scissors, so it's most practical to just do the whole thing with template and scissors, then chain-piece. Ask me how often I think, with scissors in hand, "I want my rotary cutter!" On the othe rhand, scissors work is is lap work. I can sit in front of the TV. I drop my rate from $15/hour to $10 for lap work.

ep

I can't wait to see a pix of the finished quilt if your client allows it. You'll solve all these discrepencies with all these suggestions I'm certain and it will look gorgeous and unique. Bronnie Oz